


Roses

by AgentCoop, Myka



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Character Death, Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, True Love, Unrequited Love, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 12:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20930168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCoop/pseuds/AgentCoop, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myka/pseuds/Myka
Summary: Max coughed once more, a small thing, and a flower petal floated gracefully to the ground...





	Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Goretober Day 6: Hanahaki Disease

There was something tight in Max’s chest as he grabbed the small urn with Eiji’s ashes. 

“Thank you for doing this, Max.” Sing looked apologetic and older than any seventeen-year-old should. His eyes slid downwards, towards the floor. His hands shook as he passed the silver-lined urn.

“It’s okay.” Max’s voice sounded unnatural to his own ears. This moment should have been like an ending to a long period of bleakness. The end of a story. The urn is almost weightless, and he can’t stop thinking that a life should not end as something so small. “I’ll take good care of him.”

“Thank you,” Sing bowed and tears pricked in his eyes. “Maybe finally he will be be happy now.”

“Yeah…” There was a pang of hurt against Max’s chest, but it was quickly overpowered by the sense of embarrassment for the dead.

It took almost four hours to get to Boston, and Max was silent the entire ride. He didn't even bother turning on the radio.

He’d been trying to forget, not trying to prolong the pain of it. It had been three years and still every thought of Ash made his chest tighten, made his breathing hitch.

It wasn’t going away no matter how hard he tried.

There was a tangle of emotion in his chest when he thought back to the funeral—of how Eiji cried, tears pouring down his face, and how people hugged him, and offered him condolences, and how you could hear the sniffling of his sobs through the entire service.

And of how Max had forced and steeled himself to nothingness.

He didn’t hate Eiji for it.

It was just that sometimes he woke up in the night, gasping and clutching at his chest, pain there so vivid for a moment he could swear it was bullet hole.

Sometimes, as he brushed his teeth in the morning, he would look up at the mirror and see a man lost, a man with no direction. A man with tears in his eyes.

Sometimes he’d be out on a morning run and he’d pass someone who for just a single second caught the light in such a way that their hair shone gold, and their eyes glinted jade.

But all of this was kept within. Pushed down so deep that even though roots had taken hold, nothing cracked the surface.

He wasn’t allowed to grieve like Eiji.

He was Max. It wasn’t his place.

Boston was colder than the New York—the wind buffeted the city with jagged, icy breath. Max held his sport coat closed, regretting leaving his winter coat back home.

The cemetery was small, hidden away in the suburbs. It didn’t take him long to find the grave site. 

Ash had been buried next to his mother, at the Saint Augustine Burying Ground. 

It would almost be laughable, how unfitting this was, Ash who had spent most of his life in New York, was now stuck here, spending an eternity with people he’d never known. They hadn’t even been able to get the permissions to extract Griffin and bring him here. At least if Griff were here, Max knew that Ash would have been happy for all eternity.

The gravesite was quiet. He figured that there weren’t many visitors on a normal day, but this was four p.m. on Friday afternoon, so it was completely empty.

That suited Max fine.

He knelt down at the stone, centered in bright green grass, and traced his fingertips over the engraving. 

_ **Aslan Jade Callanreese** _

_ **1968-1987** _

There was no further inscription, and Ash would have wanted it that way. He wasn’t one for cliches or traditions.

The stone was hard against his fingertips, and cold like ice. There were no flowers here—there was no one to bring them. It was a nice little plot of land though. The grass was kept up, the walkways were framed with trees still losing their autumn-burnt leaves.

He popped the lid of the urn open. Stared at the ashes inside for a second and then spilled them on the ground by the grave. “I brought Eiji, Ash.” Some of the ashes scatter with the wind, but the rest coat the grass grey. “Your Eiji you know, your—” Max felt a tug of bitterness as he said the words and he was immediately ashamed by them. It wasn’t Eiji’s fault. Everyone knew Ash was his world. It wasn’t Max’s place to tell Ash who to love. If anything, it was Max’s fault for never speaking it out loud. For satisfying himself with watching Ash’s smile. For not letting Ash know he was loved and safe and— 

Max gasped then, the urn slipping from his fingers and falling to the grass, a sharp pain in his chest flaring so bright he thought he might fall.

He managed to move against the headstone, then pressed a hand over his heart, trying to steady his breathing. 

Was it a heart attack?

He didn’t think so. He remembered hearing that your arm would go numb, that it wouldn’t be pain so much as pressure, and coldness.

This was different. This was _ wrong _.

He tumbled forward, trying to draw in a breath, but something was blocking his airways, he couldn’t get enough air.

His fingers were scrabbling at the grass, nail beds caked with mud, and he finally gasped in a breath of air, desperate and terrified. 

“I..” he forced out, blinking his eyes and hoping that someone might come. “I...need help…”

It hurt.

It hurt so much he wanted to pass out, but he managed in another, wheezing gasp, then another, and then— 

He started coughing.

Once that started, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t get a breath around the hacking, he couldn’t move he just— 

“Sir?”

Max tried to answer. He really tried to wrap his mouth around words, but he couldn’t stop, it was awful sounding, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe— 

“Sir!”

There were hands on him, helping him sit up, holding his head as he coughed, and coughed, and coughed, and then— 

Nothing.

It was over.

He was panting for air, and someone was kneeling next to him, a hand at his back.

“Sir? Are you okay, sir?”

Max pressed a hand to his mouth, watching as it came away bloody. “I’m sorry,” he pushed out. His throat was so sore, and there was still something there, something blocking the airway, he still wasn’t able to draw enough oxygen.

And then he coughed once more, a small thing, and a flower petal floated gracefully to the ground.

There was a moment of silence, then the groundskeeper reached forward and picked up the perfect, velvety petal. “Is this…” he whispered.

There was more in Max’s mouth, he didn’t want to open, but the coughing started up again, heavy and violent.

And when he was done, there was a spray of blood on the headstone, the ashes were blowing away in the wind, and rose petals were all around him.

***

It was a rare thing, this Hanahaki Disease. Max had heard of it, of course. There were stories every year of men and women finding each other, finding true love, through the strength of the disease.

Less often heard are the stories of deaths. Love unrequited, unearned.

Hanahaki disease wasn’t indiscriminate, there were cases found all over the world at any given time, but there had never been a case of the disease affecting someone in love with the dead.

Max didn’t go to a doctor, at first.

He didn’t want to be a statistic, he didn’t want to be poked and prodded and studied for the rest of his very short life. He knew exactly what was happening, he knew the survival rates.

In his case, there was no hope. No chance. 

He loved a golden haired boy, with a bright smile and calloused fingertips. 

He loved a boy with jade eyes that sparkled, a confidence that never wavered, and a small, simple smile that was afforded only to friends.

He loved a boy who shone bright like a comet, burned hot like the sun, and then fell to earth with nothing more than a last, quiet gasp of breath.

He was in love with the dead.

The petals clogged his throat hourly now, and he could feel the roots deep within his chest, pulsing at his heart, his lungs, his liver. He no longer went running, he rarely left the house at all. Every so often it hit him; the horrible, desperate need to breathe, the wild roiling nausea, and he would rush to the bathroom, puking bile and blood and roses.

On the third week, he finally called in a private physician, who was very expensive, and supposedly very knowledgeable.

The man was friendly, with a wide smile of someone well versed in speaking to lives flickering out. “There is no cure,” he said, reaching for Max’s hand.

Max let him take it, and tried to ignore the way the doctor’s cold, rough skin felt nothing like the touch he craved.

“You need to talk to the person this centers around.”

Max just shook his head, holding the doctor’s eyes. “I have. It won’t do any good.”

The doctor was understanding at least. He didn’t press the issue, didn’t try to force Max into admitting the truth. Instead, he left Max with a number for a good lawyer who was able to help him with his estate planning, quickly, because this? This was going to end soon. 

And Max nodded and smiled as the man left the house.

The little that he had saved would go to Michael. He trusted Jessica enough, despite the hostility of their divorce, to be kind in that regard.

It was only another week that passed before he couldn’t keep much down anymore, and he was losing weight every day. The man who looked up in the mirror from brushing his teeth, wasn’t a man Max recognized. He was fading, he was nothing. 

He was terrified to do this alone. 

There were flower petals all over his house.

The blood stains washed out, he was careful to attack them every time they appeared. He was desperate not to leave a mess for whoever found him.

But the petals? He left those. They were a reminder, a warning.

_ You are damned, you are damned, you are damned. _

_ *** _

The silence was deafening.

It was close now. Max could feel the way his body wanted to die, he could feel the way the roots reached further, spreading throughout his chest, throughout his limbs. 

He didn’t want this.

Max wondered sometimes, if Ash had second thoughts. If he laid his head on that library table and closed his eyes in peace, or if there was some part of his brain screaming for him to wake up, to call for help, to do something.

Max liked to believe it was the second. That Ash didn’t give up without trying.

The thought of Ash dying without any regret was almost too much hurt for his heart to take. That that bright life force could flicker away and no one noticed.

He so badly wanted to reach out one more time. He so badly wished he’d been there. To brush the fine blond hair from his forehead, to listen to Ash’s voice, rough but melodic, to smile.

To_ smile _.

Every smile since that day had been pressed. Forced, muscles pushed into a memory of something good.

He wanted to smile again.

And then it came.

He woke, 3:32 a.m. on the clock by his bed, gasping for air, grabbing at his chest, and nothing was coming. 

Nothing.

It wasn’t peaceful.

It wasn’t silent.

Max could hear the awful whine of his voice, through the thickening bud in his throat, he could hear the way his hand was pounding against the headboard of the bed.

_ Slap. _

_ Slap. _

_ Slap. _

It was violent, and furious, and sickening.

He vomited once, blood filled fluid all over the comforter, and then again, spattering bile across the fabric. He couldn’t breathe, but he could smell it, odious and noxious and deeply unsettling.

This was death.

He was naked in underneath the covers, nothing but the sheets covering his legs, and for just a moment, he flushed hot with the humiliating thought that this was how they’d find him.

A body, covered in vomit, the room reeking of roses.

And then, even that shame was taken from him. 

He couldn’t breathe and the entirety of his life narrowed in on that one face. 

_ Help _, he wanted to scream.

_ Help, please help, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry— _

The pressure in his throat was too much, he felt a burst, and then blood was dripping there too, covering his lips, splattering against his belly.

Everytime he coughed, more petals erupted. They were everywhere, covered in spit, covered in puke, covered in blood. 

This wasn’t beautiful.

This was hell.

It was hell.

And then it came up—one perfect rose, petals sparkling in the moonlight that dripped through the windows. He held it in the palm of his hand and watched as it bloomed.

Each petal opened slowly.

Each petal opened perfectly.

And as the breath was stolen from his lungs, as blood continued to drip, down to the bedding,

Max closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Find us on Twitter:  
[Agentcoop](twitter.com/agentcoop1)  
[Myka](https://twitter.com/mykafl)


End file.
